Irish group indicates it's ready to disarm

DUBLIN — The Irish National Liberation Army, an IRA splinter group responsible for some of the most notorious killings of the Northern Ireland conflict, renounced violence yesterday and signaled it could hand over weapons soon to disarmament officials.

Eleven years after calling a leaky cease-fire, the outlawed INLA said it would observe “exclusively peaceful means” and cooperate with Canadian Gen. John de Chastelain, leader of an international commission that oversees the disarmament of underground armies operating in both parts of Ireland. The INLA did not explicitly promise to disarm fully nor specify when the secretive process would start.

The INLA-linked Irish Republican Socialist Party made the announcement at its annual parade near Dublin in honor of their movement's founder, Seamus Costello. He was shot to death by an Irish Republican Army member in the capital in October 1977.

The move was widely seen as another boost for Northern Ireland's largely successful peace process, which already has delivered IRA disarmament and a Catholic-Protestant government in Northern Ireland. INLA officials said the announcement was not timed to coincide with yesterday's visit to Dublin and Belfast by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

British and Irish security officials downplayed the value of words from the INLA, a feud-prone alliance of small gangs that long have turned on each other for control of criminal rackets, including sales of counterfeit goods and smuggled cigarettes.